The social network continues to grow even though Meta has made significant cuts.

After nearly 20 years, Facebook continues to grow. The social network now has 2 billion daily active users, Meta reported along with its fourth-quarter earnings. The report marks the first time Facebook, which increased its user count by 16 million last quarter, has reached 2 billion daily users.

While Facebook isn’t the first Meta-owned platform to reach 2 billion daily users – WhatsApp recently surpassed 2 billion DAUs – it shows that the company’s biggest source of ad revenue is still growing, even as Meta has made significant cuts to its business in recent months. CEO Mark Zuckerberg alluded to the company’s recent restructuring, which resulted in the elimination of more than 11,000 jobs, saying in a statement that “our management theme for 2023 is ‘The Year of Efficiency,'” Engadget wrote on the topic.

But even though Meta’s revenue shrank over the past year, the company’s $32.2 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 was still slightly better than expected, despite declining 4% from last year.

On the call with analysts, Zuckerberg suggested that Meta will continue to make cuts as it prioritizes efficiency.

“We’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t being executed or maybe aren’t as important anymore.”

he said. The CEO also said that generative artificial intelligence will be a priority for Meta in the coming year.

Meta also continues to lose huge amounts of money on its metaverse investments. Reality Labs, the division that oversees its VR, AR and metaverse projects, lost $4.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 and nearly $14 billion for the full year, Meta said. and the company once again confirmed that it expects to lose even more money from Reality Labs next year.

While losses from Reality Labs contributed to Meta’s revenue slowdown last year, Zuckerberg also said he believes the company is in the midst of a “pretty rapid phase change” compared to years past.